The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

x MARCUS AURELIUS 183
many dost thou neglect ? 1 But it is
thy duty so to
look on and so to do everything, that at the same time
the power of dealing with circumstances is perfected, and
the contemplative faculty is exercised, and the confidence
which comes from the knowledge of each several thing is
maintained without showing it, but yet not concealed.
For when wilt thou enjoy simplicity when gravity, and
when the knowledge of every several thing, both what it
is in substance, and what place it has in the universe,
and how long
it is formed to exist and of what things it
is
compounded, and to whom it can belong, and who are
able both to give it and take it
away.
10. A spider is
proud when it has caught a fly, and
another when he has caught a poor hare, and another
when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when
he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken
bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians. Are
not these robbers, if thou examinest their principles ? 2
11. Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all
things change into one another, and constantly attend
to it, and exercise thyself about this part [of philosophy].
For nothing
is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.
Such a man has put off the body, and as he sees that he
must, no one knows how soon, go away from among men
and leave everything here, he gives himself up entirely
to just doing in all his actions, and in everything else
that happens he resigns himself to the universal nature.
But as to what any man shall say or think about him or
do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself
contented with these two things, with acting justly in
what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now
assigned to him ;
and he lays aside all distracting and
1
This is corrupt.
1
Marcus means to say that conquerors are robbers. He himself
warred against Sarmatians, and was a robber as he says, like the
rest.